Funny connection

Now that I bashed Buzzr in the previous entry, I might as well turn more lighthearted about our little oldies diginet.

As I mentioned a few posts ago, most of my Buzzr-watching lately has focused on Password Plus and Super Password. I'm a sucker for word games, and these two shows were real improvements over the original, often dawdling Password.

On Sunday night Buzzr runs a Password Plus mini-marathon of four eps. So I settled into watch an hour or so, and who showed up as a contestant but Rich Cronin, the future president of GSN.

It's an odd connection between our two game show networks. Rich's Password Plus adventures had previously run on GSN itself, where I got the screenshot. But the episodes are now in the rotation at Buzzr. Rich was a good contestant on Password Plus. He piled up several wins and a good amount of prize money.

Now that I think about it, Rich's tenure at GSN might hold a few lessons for Buzzr. Sony brought him to the network in 2001 after dismissing then-president Michael Fleming. GSN was in something of an existential crisis at the time, not unlike what Buzzr seems to be experiencing now. (The oldies diginet similarly dismissed general manager Ron Garfield last year.)

Rich did quite a turnaround job at GSN. In his six years as president he made the network profitable with some of their best originals (Lingo, Russian Roulette, High Stakes Poker) and acquisitions (Regis Millionaire). Fremantle needs somebody to play a similar Mr. Fixit role at Buzzr.

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